<p>Will I get a job at a big 4 firm if I go to San Jose State? Do they recruit there?</p>
<p>Get a 3.8+ and apply there, the least they will do then is give you an interview. Big 4 want talented, smart, and good people you cannot always find that at a top ten or top school…</p>
<p>Just show them that you’re really passionate about white collar slavery, because that’s basically what big 4 accounting is.</p>
<p>^^OMG! LOOK! IT’S ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE “I CAN’T HACK IT WORKING MORE THAN 40 HOURS PER WEEK TYPES”! </p>
<p>Or wait, is it another one of those "I got turned down from the big 4 types?</p>
<p>JuggernautCos0…that’s awful advice. I’ve seen 4.0’s with no ecs not get responses for on campus interviews. I talked with a partner from KPMG two weeks ago. He told me that on average the students they hire have a 3.3-3.5 GPA. They ALSO have a few leadership positions, a PT job usually, etc. However, he said they’ve hired quite a few who have a 3.4 GPA and a BAP membership, but just knocked them dead in the interviews. </p>
<p>Something that will constantly come up in Big 4 interviews is “We can train you to audit our way, but we cannot train you to have strong teamwork abilities.” Basically, they’ll expect you to know the basic technical thing, be able to pass your CPA in a year, but most importantly be able to work well with people. It’s just a fact that most people with 3.8-4.0 (even at “lesser” schools) are introverted nerds. </p>
<p>To the OP, the problem is…most people giving advice about Big 4 on this board have never interviewed with Big 4. Go to a school with a DECENT connection with a Big 4 and strive to be the best and when interview time comes, do VERY well. The reason a lot of frat boys and sorority girls get jobs with the Big 4 is because they spent much more time developing social skills than worrying about getting a 3.8 (once again, awful advice).</p>
<p>I graduated from a “cow college” back when it was the Big 8 vs the Big 4 so my perspective/experience may be more appropriate for a museum than for this forum.</p>
<p>Your success in the first couple of years in public accounting will be dependent on your technical knowledge and ability to learn new things very quickly. After that, it will become more dependent on your ability to manage others and eventually on your ability to generate new business. So don’t discount the importance, long term, of developing social skills along the way.</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I was not offered a job by a Big 8 firm, so I started my career with a good local firm and still went on to have a successful career. There are many paths to success so don’t think you have to go with a Big 4 or it’s the end of the world. Wherever you start, work hard, recognize opportunities when they come along, be willing to take some risks and you will do well.</p>
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<p>OMG! LOOK! IT’S SOMEONE WHO TYPES IN ALL CAPS! HE MUST BE SO SMART!</p>
<p>Or wait, it actually just makes you look juvenile.</p>
<p>Listen kid, I worked in Ernst and Young TAS as a sophomore. It was in another country (so save the "zOMG BUT TAS DOESN’T TAKE SOPHOMORES IN THE US!), but still, I know what the Big Whore is all about, and TAS is supposed to be the “interesting” and dare I say “prestigious” side of accounting. By all means, if you want to make a decent salary right out of undergrad (in absolute terms not by hours), do boring ass work for 60+ hours a week, and be pigeon-holed as an accountant for the rest of your life and exit to become a controller at a company then go for it. It just means that people like me who are more interested in industry jobs at large companies that involve less stressful work, relatively similar pay, and good exit opps to business school without being pigeonholed as an auditor will gladly take the reduced competition, especially since a lot of the Big Whore kids at any school are the stars that sip that public accounting Kool-Aid all day.</p>
<p>PS: You better get into the Big 4 and maybe Grant Thornton + a couple of others if you want your public accounting experience to be worth anything for most of the exciting and lucrative industry positions.</p>